Page 165 - 2020 Sept Important Chinese Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Important Chinese Art | Sotheby's

Its oval face and idealized expression, which exude deep spirituality, display an early attempt at naturalism, while its richly carved
crown with floral forms is reminiscent of the stylized aesthetic of the preceding dynasties.

The Sui dynasty unified China in 589 after a long period of cultural, political and military fragmentation, which began with the fall
of the Han dynasty in 220 AD. Buddhism was seen as a means to unite the empire and consolidate dynastic power, hence Sui
rulers began the construction of major religious buildings and commissioned Buddhist images. While stylistically Sui sculptures
continue in the traditions established in the preceding dynasties, 'characteristics that were latent in the two preceding styles were
brought to full blossom by Sui carvers' (Angela F. Howard, Chinese Sculpture, New Haven, 2006, p. 290). Osvald Sirén in ‘Chinese
Marble Sculptures of the Transition Period’, BMFEA 1940, no. 12, p. 490, states that 'The observation of nature seems indeed to
have increased as well as the mastery of the sculptural form'. The present head is characterized by features that harmonize the
Sui dynasty’s emergent trend toward naturalism with the inherited idealized forms that conventionally conveyed the purity of
Buddhist subjects.

Excavations at Qingzhou, Shandong province have yielded Northern Qi and Sui limestone standing bodhisattvas, detailed with
polychrome pigments and gilding, that similarly bear full, oval faces crowned by intricate diadems with petaled lobes, pendent
tassels, and articulated bands, suggesting a geographic and cultural origin for this style of carving; for a Sui dynasty figure of
Guanyin from Longxing si, Qingzhou, see Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist
Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, fig. 13; for a related Northern Qi bodhisattva, see Buddhist
Sculpture: New Discoveries from Qingzhou, Shandong Province, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 2001, cat. no. 69.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/important-chinese-art?locale=en 165/435